Getting Started

This guide walks you through generating your first app with Code Genie, deploying it to your AWS Account, and running it locally for development.

Prerequisites

Before continuing you’ll need an AWS Account and a developer environment set up with:

• Node.js 20+
• AWS CLI

Login to Code Genie CLI

Start by logging into the Code Genie CLI with:

Login

npx @codegenie/cli login

Tip

If you don’t yet have an account, you can create one during this flow. If you choose to signup with an Email + Password, you’ll receive an email with a confirmation code. You’ll need to enter the code on the same tab you used to register to complete the CLI login. If you instead clicked the link, simply re-run npx @codegenie/cli login.

Generate a ToDo app

Run the Code Genie CLI command below to generate a ToDo application:

Generate ToDo app

mkdir todo && cd todo
npx @codegenie/cli generate \
--name "Todoodle" \
--description "A todo list app that lets users create lists and add items to the list. \
Items should have a title, description, be markable as completed, have a due date, and have an image."

Tip

Try to keep the description focused on the kind of data that your app deals with, rather than the custom business logic requirements. Code Genie creates project foundations based on data models, and doesn’t add custom business logic (yet).

The App Definition Generator uses AI to generate a data model based on natural language. The more detail you provide, the more accurate the resulting data module. However, don’t try to get a perfect data model using this approach. Instead, aim for getting a data model that’s good enough as a starting point, and then manual tweak the data model to match your requirements.

Initialize app and deploy to AWS

Run the command below to install dependencies and deploy the app to your AWS account:

Initialize ToDo app

npm run init:dev

This command can take up to 10 minutes to run since it’s installing dependencies and deploying to AWS for the first time. See Deployments: Deploy to AWS for more details. While it’s deploying, you can familiarize yourself with the Project Structure.

After it completes, your browser will open your web app’s Getting Started page with lots of great tips on what to do next (for now, just follow along in this guide). Take a minute to explore your Todo app by first registering for an account via your app’s home page.

(optional) Modify the App Definition and Data Model within the .codegenie directory

The generate command we ran earlier gave us a starting point for modeling our application. While generating an app based on a description may seem like magic, the true power of Code Genie is unlocked by accurately modeling your app definition.

Modify one or more of the Entity properties defined in .codegenie/app.ts and then regenerate the project by running:

Regenerate ToDo app and redeploy

npx @codegenie/cli generate
npm run deploy:dev

See App Definition for more details on modeling your application.

Make changes

After the deployment completes, start the UI locally by running:

npm run start-ui-local-api:dev

In a separate terminal, start the API locally by running:

npm run start-api:dev

Open localhost:3001 to view your local web app and begin making changes to your UI and API. See Local Development for more details.

Next steps

The next step is up to you! If you want to play around with the ToDo app and learn more about the generated source code: check out the Project Walkthrough guides.

If you’d rather start developing your own application, start by running npx @codegenie/cli generate --name "..." --description "..." with as much detail as possible (so long as it’s under 500 characters) and then head over to the App Definition guide and model your app with more details.